My 03 Punto diesel came to grief yesterday whilst my daughter was using it. Recovery man's diagnosis was broken timing belt. Car has done 76000 miles.
Would like to know

1) Is this is a 'safe engine' in respect of timing belt failure. As far as I can see it has 8 valves which for other engines appears to be the key issue

2) If the answer to the above positive is the belt replacement a straightforward task for a competent amatuer? I have changed belts on Ford Escorts/Orions in my past but this engine looks a bit more crammed in

3) If the answer to 1 above is bad news what is the best solution -try to get broken down and repaired or just go for recon engine?

no its the 8v fire petrol engines that are safe, yours be buggered

To latch on is mine safe?
1.2 8valve mk2 punto obviously

daz_rich said:

To latch on is mine safe?
1.2 8valve mk2 punto obviously

Click to expand...

yes

i seen this engine survive cam belt failures twice now at work

it seems that due to the absolute vertical position of the valves they can wallop the pistons without bending them and seem to be so tough they don't suffer

i think for the price of a belt it's worth a try

stick it on and see if it runs

if not it's buggered

first time we did it we lapped valves in again and it was fine

second time we didn't take head off simply compression tested it and it was good so started it and it was also fine

on both ocations it happened at fairly low rpm

do you have any idea what rpm it came off at

Just pasting my answer from the other thread you started

It's not a safe engine but quite a few people have been lucky with timing belt failures.
I've just changed an engine on a JTD and it wasn't too bad, just the size and weight of the engine makes positioning it a bit awkward

Thanks for replies/information to date. To update others it appears that it was not actually the belt that had failed but the belt pulley which had come loose where it keys onto the camshaft -this must have been chattering away for a while and has worn away the keyway slot until the pulley was no longer driving the camshaft. Man at garage said he had never seen this before!
And to complete the story - it has knackered several of the valves!!!
I will try to post a photograph when I get it back

o dear that's very unlucky i have never heard of this either

it's defo not common thing

Well if the pulley was loose then I'm guessing the belt could have slipped before the whole lot went?
Was the car running any differently in the weeks leading up to the failure?